A massive car bomb shook Beirut this morning, exploding in the predominantly Christian district of Ashrafiya and killing at least eight. The explosion threatens to reignite the sectarian tensions that were behind the country’s destructive civil war and which continue to plague the country. The security situation in Lebanon has been under severe strain, with a constant and escalating potential for spillover from Syria’s neighboring civil war. Backed by Iran, the Shiite party Hezbollah militarily controls southern Lebanon, politically dominates the country, and has been aiding the Assad regime across the border in the regime’s fight against Syrian rebels. Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor recently blasted Iran for seeking to turn Lebanon into an “outpost for terror.”

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